Gilder’s right in principle, just as he’s been in every single statement in this column series. He’s right in principle since he listens to technology, and technology is what the world’s smartest people know how to do. He testified since he knows that their superior technologies can become standards that improve billions of lives, or simply tragically lost opportunities. The difference usually stems from the attitude of legislators, regulators, and operators towards useful change. Technological inertia has a natural advantage, since change is always difficult and not always useful. But since there’s no product, service, or process that humanity’s genius cannot improve, our authorities and managers must overcome their natural human inclination to automatically reject changes that they don’t propose themselves and strive to give fair hearings to change agents like Gilder and his expositions on the geniuses and their know-how.

In 1994, Gilder began publicly calling on the FCC to stop the frequency auctions and begin opening up spectrum to non-interfering smart radio technologies. The FCC is a big agency, slow to turn around, but it has finally seen the light shed by Gilder and others. This January it announced its intentions to open up spectrum to exactly the technologies that Gilder has promoted over these last few years. The FCC’s Unlicensed - National Information Infrastructure initative will open up frequencies to the public on the basis that everyone must minimize the interference they cause and accept the interference they receive. This change’s significance is hard to overestimate. It’s a crucial step towards fully utilizing Moore’s Law’s power to create an incredibly rich communications network connecting the world’s population in real-time.

This new network will allow greater specialization that humanity has ever seen before, and this greater specialization will increase both individual productivity and the gains from trade. By growing up and coming of age surrounded by these new tools, Mexico’s children will understand this new environment better than any earlier generation could, and will exploit its opportunities in ways that would surprise even geniuses among us older folks. Their tools will let their productivity and wealth surpass ours far more than ours surpasses the original Spanish conquistadores and the allied or vanquished indigenous peoples of that pre-industrial age -- some of whose Mexican descendants have yet to see any significant impact from the industrial age, but all of whose Mexican descendants could soon have a cellular window into the information age.

Mexico has an opportunity to take the lead and set the agenda in opening that information age window. Prior spectrum allocations limit the FCC’s options for supporting telecom innovation, but the SCT can open up a hundred million fast digital lines by committing just part of its vast swathes of open spectrum to low-interference smart radio. At the same time, the SEP can commit to buy millions of Internet handsets with digital cameras and microphones for Mexican students. With those huge production volumes, Moore’s Law and scale economies would let the SEP offer students universal basic Internet access -- text, voice, images, and video -- for just a few dollars each by the year 2000. With prospects of open spectrum and a multimillion-handset-base enticing smart radio manufacturers and operators into Mexico’s market, this generation’s Mexican youth would be the world’s first to grow up totally immersed in a modern network, doing their homework with all the World Wide Web’s resources, and posting the spectacular results for the world to see. The incalculable benefits for today’s adults in commerce and culture would be just icing on the cake.

The world’s telecommunications manufacturers and operators are all here in Mexico City at this week’s EXPO COMM Telecomunicaciones Mexico ‘97 show, including smart radio’s pioneers, Tellabs Wireless. Next week, The News’ readers will know if Mexico’s authorities and operators announce any plans to begin opening spectrum and ordering handsets so companies like Tellabs and Motorola will develop these amazing new technologies in Mexico first and thereby accelerate this nation’s development into world leadership.

Readers with questions or comments for Dr. White can call 011(525)595-6045, fax 011(525)683-5874, or email white@profmexis.sar.net

Return to Mark White's Home Page

This page hosted by Get your own Free Home Page